"For years, regulators and activists have worried that social media companies’ algorithms were dividing America with politically toxic posts and conspiracies. The concern was so widespread that in 2020 Meta flung open troves of internal data for university academics to study how Facebook and Insta
Hilariously it wasn’t easy finding a source that wasn’t bias or factually off.
I kind of get it though social media boosts confidence in bias beliefs but those bias beliefs are already there people just weren’t as loud about them or inclined to act on them like they are now.
Yea it kinda tracks right. It’s not the internet being a problem per se, but maybe it actually delivering on its promise: connecting people and providing and distributing information faster and wider than ever before. Except, garbage in, garbage out.
Something I’ve been saying for a while is that there could a slightly different timeline in which we get mass education “right” before we get the internet and TV. And by “right” I mean we move past the sort of basic academic stuff that school covers and actually try to equip people to be thoughtful and informed and functional citizens. The economy, the governmental system and the crafts of persuasion, communication and the difficulties of politics etc … cover all of those in such a way that young people can actually navigate how the world works. And, do so before TV, internet and mass social media. Maybe things turn out different?
I kind of get it though social media boosts confidence in bias beliefs but those bias beliefs are already there people just weren’t as loud about them or inclined to act on them like they are now.
So sm does fuel polarization
Yea it kinda tracks right. It’s not the internet being a problem per se, but maybe it actually delivering on its promise: connecting people and providing and distributing information faster and wider than ever before. Except, garbage in, garbage out.
Something I’ve been saying for a while is that there could a slightly different timeline in which we get mass education “right” before we get the internet and TV. And by “right” I mean we move past the sort of basic academic stuff that school covers and actually try to equip people to be thoughtful and informed and functional citizens. The economy, the governmental system and the crafts of persuasion, communication and the difficulties of politics etc … cover all of those in such a way that young people can actually navigate how the world works. And, do so before TV, internet and mass social media. Maybe things turn out different?